US Treasury’s Final Rules for Recovery Funds are Out, Here’s Your Walk-Through

The US Department of the Treasury has released its final rules for local government use of ARPA Recovery Funds. The accountability provisions will require some meaningful local compliance – NACo has assembled a useful guidance document, and is serving as a resource for county officials navigating this process.

Received from the National Association of Counties, for distribution to county officials:

NACo just refreshed a major update of our analysis of Treasury’s Final Rule for the ARPA Fiscal Recovery Fund (attached).

The updated analysis includes, but is not limited to the following:

  • Clarifying information on eligible/ineligible uses we have received from Treasury, including capital expenditures
  • Deeper dive on the provisions around revenue loss allocations
  • Treatment of loans
  • Reporting requirements and background information on federal Uniform Guidance/2 CFR Part 200

Additionally, we wanted to make sure you and your members were aware of other relevant information pertaining to the upcoming Project and Expenditure (P&E) Report deadline on April 30, 2022.

  • One-time revenue loss election: Counties will have the option to make a one-time decision to calculate revenue loss according to the formula outlined in the final rule OR elect the $10 million revenue loss standard allowance, not to exceed the county’s award allocation. The option to make this one-time decision will be provided on the April 30 P&E Report.

  • Treasury acceptance of Project & Expenditure Reports: Treasury is now only accepting Project and Expenditure Reports from Tier 1, 2 and 3 recipients. This includes:
    • Tier 1: States, U.S. territories, metropolitan cities and counties with a population that exceeds 250,000 residents
    • Tier 2: Metropolitan cities and counties with a population below 250,000 residents YET still received more than $10 million in Recovery Funds, and NEUs that are allocated more than $10 million in SLFRF funding
    • Tier 3: Tribal Governments that are allocated more than $30 million in SLFRF funding
  • For Tier 4 (Tribal govts with less than $30 million) and Tier 5 counites with a population below 250,000 residents AND received less than $10 million in Recovery Funds, the first P&E Report is also due April 30, 2022, and then annually thereafter. HOWEVER, the Treasury submission portal is not yet open for recipients to submit a report. Treasury is likely to open the portal for this group by the end of month

  • Expenditure categories: Updated reporting guidance contains an expanded set of Expenditure Categories to reflect the broader flexibility introduced by the final rule. Counties who submitted Project and Expenditure Reports in January will have the opportunity to update their previously selected Expenditure Category, if appropriate.

  • Capital expenditures: Updated reporting guidance states that additional programmatic data for capital expenditures is optional in the April 2022 P&E Report and required for the July 2022 P&E Report.

Counties can access the Reporting Guidance for the Recovery Fund on Treasury’s Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds website. To see a concise summary of the final rule for the Recovery Fund, please see the Overview Document.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out:

Eryn Hurley, Director of Government Affairs
National Association of Counties
ehurley@naco.org

Michael Sanderson

Executive Director Maryland Association of Counties